NSCAD closes student gallery, shop

After six years of operation, the school is closing Seeds Gallery, the only space on campus where students and alumni can show and sell their work.

An email to the NSCAD community Tuesday afternoon confirmed rumours that have circulated for a couple weeks. The board of governors decided at its September meeting to close the gallery at the end of its fiscal year, March 31, 2014.

“Despite best efforts, Seeds has never been able to operate within its budget and has lost money every year since 2007,” the email from NSCAD president Daniel O’Brien said.

The university can’t afford the gallery’s financial drain as it continues to grapple with an annual deficit, the email said.

The 126-year-old institution has been under pressure to cut costs since February when the province asked the school to deliver a plan to pay back $18 million.

The decision to close the gallery wasn’t made quickly or lightly, NSCAD spokeswoman Marilyn Smulders said over the phone Wednesday.

The school is open to business proposals that would make the gallery viable, she said. The gallery has lost $40,000 a year and has never broken even.

In 2010, the school moved Seeds from its original location on Hollis Street to NSCAD’s new campus beside the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market. The move meant the gallery began paying rent for the first time, and foot traffic shifted from downtown workers and shoppers to cruise ship passengers.

The NSCAD Student Union set up the gallery as a non-profit, student union president Sarah Trower said Wednesday. The student union put $10,000 into the space, and after three years on Hollis Street, it came close to breaking even, she said.

“It definitely took a turn for the worse when it moved down to (the) port (campus). It was not always bleeding money in the way that it was the past couple years.”

Natalie Boterman worked as manager of Seeds from August 2011 to May 2012 and sat on the gallery’s advisory committee. Based on her recollection of finances, the gallery was “well within reaching financial sustainability at the Hollis Street location.”

If it had not moved to the port campus, it would likely have become financially stable that year, she said.

In the year leading up to the move, students at the Saint Mary’s University school of business drew up a plan for Seeds and recommended against moving it to its present location.

“It’s hard to speculate on what could have been, but it is my opinion that the move from Hollis to the (port campus) was the beginning of the end for what I see as NSCAD’s greatest outreach tool,” Boterman said.

The Chronicle Herald requested financial reports from the university and the student union but has not received them.

Trower said she first learned Seeds would close at the board of governors meeting in September. Students were not consulted on the closure and didn’t have an opportunity to come up with solutions, she said.

“This is a conversation that should have happened before they decided to close it.”

As a student representative on the board, she did not vote on the decision at the time.

“Seeds is an invaluable pedagogical resource at our school. This is the only place that students have to learn about the process of selling their art in a commercial gallery.

“It’s going to be a sad day if we see it go.”

“When I heard about it I was very upset,” fourth-year student Katie Nakaska said as she set up her show at Seeds Gallery on Wednesday afternoon.

“This is such a unique place for students and alumni to display their work commercially. To have it swept off the map is ridiculous.”

The gallery’s financial options have not been explored enough, she said. “It could have been prevented with a little more care and exposure.”